McAllister said. ‘You stand there half naked and say words your whole body is denying. You are so craven with desire you can barely speak.’
‘No,’ Aggie said. ‘I can’t speak because I am so feared.’
McAllister shook his head as he might at a naughty child. ‘It’s not fear you are displaying, but pure carnal lechery, which I am going to satisfy before you and I are much older.’
‘No, Bernie,’ Aggie said, backing away.
‘Ah yes, Bernie, yes,’ McAllister said. He made a grab for her, grasping her so tight she was unable to break free. ‘That is what you will be saying before the night is done.’
He pulled Aggie down to her knees, still clasped tight in his arms, and then pushed her with such force that her head hit the ground with a resounding crack. For a moment or two her senses reeled and McAllister took advantage of that. His hands shot beneath her clothes and he pulled off herknickers and stockings in one swift movement, and so roughly his fingernails scored deep scratches down her legs.
This brought Aggie to her senses and, though whimpering with fear, she began to fight like a wildcat.
‘So that is the way you want to play, is it?’ McAllister asked almost in amusement, catching hold of Aggie’s flailing arms and pinning them down across her body with one hand.
‘If you don’t let me go, I’ll scream,’ Aggie said fiercely, though even as she said it she wondered what good it would do. The wind would snatch away the sound of any scream, and who would be around to hear it anyway? There were no houses near and few would be abroad at that time of night.
McAllister threw himself on top of her. ‘Scream away then, though I might have something that will take away any desire to struggle at all.’
Aggie looked at him in terror. In all her fifteen years she had never seen a naked man, but she had seen the mating of the animals and so she knew what she was feeling between her legs. ‘Please don’t do this,’ she begged again. ‘Let me go now and I swear on my mother’s life that I will not mention this to a soul.’ Then seeing that had no effect, she said, ‘What of Philomena and the children?’
‘What the bloody hell is it to do with them?’ McAllister asked. ‘Come on, we have prevaricated more than enough,’ he went on irritably. ‘My bloody cock is ready to explode, I can tell you.’
He drew a fresh hip flask of poteen from his pocket as he spoke.
‘I’m not having any of that,’ Aggie said, ‘so don’t think it.’
‘Oh, but you are, bonny girl.’ McAllister lifted the flask to her lips. But Aggie threw her head from side to side so that the dribbles of poteen spilled from her mouth and ran down her neck.
McAllister was furious. He gave Aggie a punch in the face, causing her eyes to go out of focus and her nose to pour with blood, and she cried out in pain and terror.
‘Now look what you have made me do,’ McAllister said. ‘Just because you weren’t being a good girl and doing as you were told. Now open your mouth and swallow this nice and easy, or I will make you swallow it.’
Too frightened not to obey, Aggie opened her mouth a little and McAllister put the flask to her lips again. To make sure she would swallow this time, he held on to her bruised and smarting nose. Aggie gulped at the fiery liquid, feeling it burning her throat as it went down and then hit her stomach like a ball of fire. But far more worrying, the more of the stuff she drank, the less she wanted to fight off the man lying on top of her.
When Aggie’s useless arms fell to the sides of her body and stayed there, McAllister smiled, knowing that now she would be unable to prevent him doing what he wanted. He took the drained bottle away and let his hands trail over her body.
Part of Aggie knew she should protest at this, but she didn’t seem able to. It was as if it was happening to someone else and she was out of her body, looking down on herself. The moan took her by